I finally got around to reading Fiasco and then had to re-watch the Wil Wheaton malarkey to help make sense of it.

I love the movies and shows it seeks to emulate, but was slightly put off second time around by the WW videos; they were just a little too loud and bombastic. I'll give this a go at home with the "standbyers" and see if we can make it sing. I suspect, being English, that we might sail more closely to the shores of farce than fiasco.

I've finished reading Seven Wonders, Pelgrane's collection of story games, a purchase inspired by my first foray into such games at Furnace last year. I'm conflicted by this collection in that most of them have an inspiring premise for a core that I'd like to explore further but, bar one of them, it's unlikely they'll get to my table. I enjoyed the read through and was appreciative of the ideas and potential but the stumbling blocks for me were the questions involved in preparing the games, the settings themselves and the inspiration behind the scene framing. My working life revolves around questions that are similar, and in some cases identical, to the ones used in the games and the process of reading through was a weird mash up of work and spare time for me. I'm pretty sure these questions come up all the time in the more regular rpgs I play but they rest in the background and are not front and centre in the same way they're presented here. I really wasn't expecting this reaction and it's quite puzzling. One of the games was really intriguing, however, and I'm pondering whether a Con slot might be an interesting challenge, maybe at Furnace this year.

Been reading Shadowrun: Anarchy. Described as a rules light version of Shadowrun what it actually is is a different version of Shadowrun. Narrative gameplay and pared down rules it almost seems, so far, to be an attempt to make a trad game appeal to those of a more independent bent. Or jump on the current trend started by the latest versions of D&D (which I've only heard about, I went from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder and have stayed there). I'm very intrigued and am looking forward to giving it a whirl. I like Shadowrun but was slightly put off by the complexity of some of the classes and rules. Anarchy looks, so far, to be much more to my liking.

It HAS to be a rules light version of SR5. The space-time continuum would warp if it became more rules dense!

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Peanut wrote:Been reading Shadowrun: Anarchy. Described as a rules light version of Shadowrun what it actually is is a different version of Shadowrun. Narrative gameplay and pared down rules it almost seems, so far, to be an attempt to make a trad game appeal to those of a more independent bent. Or jump on the current trend started by the latest versions of D&D (which I've only heard about, I went from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder and have stayed there). I'm very intrigued and am looking forward to giving it a whirl. I like Shadowrun but was slightly put off by the complexity of some of the classes and rules. Anarchy looks, so far, to be much more to my liking.

I'd not imagine D&D5e is some kind of narrative story game if I were you, lol

Hmmm... So, tried Shadowrun: Anarchy at ConTingency. Struggled with it. They want each player to narrate in turn which didn't really work for me. It just doesn't seem right to me when a lot of the point of SR is the various actions of a team combining to complete a scene. The paring down of the abilities and rules thereto are fine but it's the narration - rare to me that the problem is that way round. Maybe there's something missed in the game I played in but my instinct is to stick with the crunch and ignore the "take turns to narrate" bit.

I've been delving into Seventh Sea Second Edition. I've had no exposure to the first edition. Some thoughts, in no particular order:

(*) The good bits of the setting are really rather cool. Of the countries described, Castille, Eisen, and Vesten are great. There are some good bits in the Vaticine Church and religious conflicts, and I like the way the Church supported knowledge and scientific progress until being taken over by the Inquisition. That's a massive story hook for me.

(*) On the other hand, Albion is a bit naff and the Scotland and Ireland analogues make me cringe. Other parts of the setting I'd also want to tweak- the Objectivists seem a spent force and I'd want to draw a bit more from history for their philosophy. The sexism in Vodacce is too heavy-handed for my tastes too; Vodacce needs powerful noble women to shine...I want my Catharine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia analogues.

(*) The setting is underdeveloped for my tastes. I want some NPCs as well as the cultural details and mentions of rulers. I want more details of particular locations; for some of the countries, NPCs and specific places are absent. This is going to need a fair amount of work for me to use.

(*) The system is interesting and looks like it delivers, though it leaves a lot of room for GM interpretation and I'm not sure the extended example of play illustrates it properly. Or maybe how I'd picture using it. Or maybe I still don't completely understand.

(*) There are good bits in the magic. Porte is very cool, for instance. Albion again doesn't work for me.

(*) I sound critical, but the good bits really do inspire me, and it's good stuff should I want my fantasy swashbucklers. It's pricey (even discounted at Games Lore), but I'm glad I have it.

I didn't back the KS, but it sounds like my problems are fixed by grabbing some of the regional sourcebooks in PDF for first edition, and grabbing some bits and pieces (the way NPCs are set out in 2e, stat blocks aren't needed). Though of course the setting has been rebooted, so it's not quite the same as the first edition one apparently.

Finished a read through of The Thin Blue Line for Savage Worlds. This looked like it might be a good one for Shacon for me; gritty, investigative, ticks a few boxes. But, not for me really. It's well written and clearly shows a lot of love for Detroit and bags of information but it just didn't have enough pizazz and anything really unique that sparked my creative juices; one bit that did was a section on the early history of Detroit but that's not really what the setting really is all about.

Just been reading through Simon's Code of Shojo and Shonen to check the rules while writing a Magical Girl high school mini-campaign (mini-series? Graphic novel?) Not sure whether to lean hard on the rules to get the characters emoting at each other or just ease off and trust the players.

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